Infectious
by The Jaye Benjamin
Summary: Becoming a trainer is infectious. You kids these days don't seem to understand the hardships of travelling. I was just as naive as you at your age, maybe even more. First thing you have to learn in this business is that you don't always get what you want.
1. Andromeda

**One  
Andromeda**

Here's the deal. My name's Andromeda VanDenPlas, or Andy for short. I'm a pokémon trainer, and I'm aiming to be the best. This is my story, if you hadn't already guessed. I've decided to write a full autobiography, just because I can, and for your enjoyment. I want people to experience the hardships trainers have to go through on their way to the top. I want those little ten-year-olds, with their little hoothoot and their rattata to know that the idea of becoming the best is not to be taken lightly. There is SO much more to training than levelling up and evolving their team. And so I begin my story in one of the most dramatic moments of my entire life: obtaining my first ever pokémon.

I had always had really protective parents. A lot of starting trainers do, I know, but mine were worse. You'll get to know that. The reason they were so protective? I had no idea. I guessed, however, that it was because I was an only child, and they were extremely lucky to have me. My mother giving birth was a complete fluke. They had been trying for over seven years to have me, but for some reason the embryos would never attach to the – you probably don't want to know any of this.

Point is, mum had always had difficulty getting pregnant, and after waiting so long to spend twelve-or-so hours in excruciating pain and pop me out, both her and my dad committed themselves to me. They would have had more children, but it was only our family's luck that diagnosed her with Leukaemia when I was almost three months old. It only worsened her chances of getting pregnant, not that she wanted to get pregnant anyway with the risk of harm to the baby. So, my parents spoilt me, but maintained a strict streak that always kept me in my place.

When I was five, my parents decided they would move to Azalea Town in Johto from Floarama Town in Sinnoh. The noise was about the same in both towns, they remained fairly quiet for the most part, but sometimes, when something big was going down, trainers, coordinators and tourists, anything flocked to the towns. In Floarama, it was usually contests, or flower festivals; in Azalea, it was events revolving around the Slowpoke Well, or the pokéball maker across town marketing a new brand of pokéball.

I was never allowed to go near Ilex Forest, the Slowpoke Well, or the Union Cave in the distance. In fact, I was barely ever allowed past the sidewalk outside my house without an adult watching me. It really got on my nerves, and on my tenth birthday, I asked the question they had been dreading since I first came across the Azalea Gym (on a shopping trip with a few older cousins):

"Can I get my first pokémon from Professor Elm now?"

The question came completely out of the blue. I had never talked about becoming a trainer before, not even when I saw the Gym. I had always wanted a pokémon of my own though, and I had wanted to travel. I just didn't want them to worry. But the day I turned ten I decided that there was no way I could get a pokémon without their assistance.

It was funny though. I had expected them to turn on their Rage attack and forbid me from ever speaking of it again. Instead they talked it over fairly calmly with each other, weighing the pros and cons. This lasted about a week or so before they finally decided that yes, I could go out to New Bark Town and ask the professor for either a chikorita, cyndaquil or a totodile. Unfortunately, my birthday was right before one of Azalea Town's busiest times of the year, so I had to wait another two weeks before the tourists were ready to leave and the Pidgeot Transport Service was ready to restart business.

During those two weeks, I was lucky enough to claim a front-row seat as the newest Slowking was chosen by the rest of the slowpoke. I actually watched the King's Rock placed on his head, watched the evolution and the mini-parade the new King of the Slowpoke led upwards into the town and through the streets. It would have been a magnificent sight if it hadn't been happening right when I wanted my first pokémon. So I sat there as all these magical feats occurred with a scowl and a grunt, waiting for it to end and the tourists to go home.

I was a whole ten-years-and-one-month-year-old when I was finally able to go to the Pidgeot Man and fly to New Bark. Because I was so young, I had to stay curled up in a large basket, like the ones that hang off hot air balloons, while the Pidgeot Man rode on his bird's back. It took three hours, stopping in two towns (Violet and Cherrygrove) for a drink, before we finally got to the Professor's Home. I was dropped at the edge of town where the local Pidgeot Transport Service harboured their incoming flights and I was left to find the research lab by myself.

At the age of ten that was very difficult. Anyone with mature logic would think one, find the biggest building in the town or two, ask a local. Being ten, you weren't supposed to talk to strangers at all, and you didn't have mature logic enough to search for the signs that pointed towards the facility. Instead, I just looked for the biggest building in town, and soon enough I found a gigantic house with a long driveway that rounded at the giant double-doors and swerved back down onto the street a few yards down the road.

The manor was redbrick with a strop of wood, painted white, separating each floor. The windows bulged out and were decorated with thick curtains. The lawns were a green that could almost blind someone and I could have sworn there was a shiny togetic flying around above – it was too far away to be sure. Seeing a glimpse of a fairly rare pokémon somehow assured me that this was the lab, and so I headed up the driveway of white gravel and rang the chimecho bell.

I expected lab coats. I expected microscopes, and bookshelves and machinery. What I got was a boy about three years older than me and a quilava. They didn't look very professional, but he was probably just a trainer coming back to see his Professor, to show him how much he and his pokémon had grown. The boy's brown hair was cut fairly short around the sides, and a bit longer on top and in the front, with a cow lick that fell a little to the side. An interesting haircut. The quilava stood majestically on its hind legs and flickered the flamed on and off.

"Hi." The boy raised a brow and let his weight fall onto one foot. I smiled in response and kept glancing down at his pokémon as he talked. "Who are you?"

"I-I'm Andy," I said quietly, playing with the end of my shirt's sleeve. Too quietly, it seemed, because the boy jolted a little closer and asked for me to say it again. "Andy – I'm Andy. Andromeda, actually, but call me Andy."

An aging man in a tailcoat tuxedo approached the door and opened it wider to fit himself in.

"Ah, James, do we know an Andromeda?" the boy asked nonchalantly. I looked at his jacket pocket and saw three bulges – pokéballs, I assumed. He must have only been training for a short while.

"You have an Aunt Andromeda in Sinnoh, Master Oliver," James said. He must have been their butler or something. His voice and accent was really refined. I felt a little awkward, coming from a middle class family. And now that I had realised that indeed he was a butler, I felt even more awkward. Professors didn't have butlers. This wasn't the Professor's laboratory.

"Oh. Well then do we know this Andromeda?"

"I'm afraid not, Master Oliver."

"Should we invite her in?"

"It's up to you, Master Oliver." The butler eyed me like I was beginning to rot on the doorstep.

"Actually, I was just wondering..." I was too quiet again. In the next few moments, I was brought into the mansion and made to walk through their elaborate halls. They had a lot of paintings on their walls and their carpet was a rich red. I felt like I was meeting the queen... or something. We stopped in a room with farfetch'd down couches, a huge fireplace and a larger-than-life-sized portrait of a dark-haired man and woman, sitting contently together.

There was a wooden coffee table in the middle with a setup of cakes and pastries and a silver tea set to top it all off. I didn't want to sit down in fear of dirtying their furniture with my inferiority.

James the Butler escorted the dark-haired couple from the painting in from some connecting room; they studied me with curiosity as they entered. The man, funnily enough, had longer their then the woman. It was tucked back in a ponytail like mine, though it still bulged a bit like a lion's mane. The woman had her hair in a neat bob, and it must have been dyed blonde since the painting was done. Her make-up and stern expression had remained the same, though. Both wore fairly expensive-looking clothes. The man wore a plain, black suit; the woman wore a long coat that covered whatever she was wearing underneath.

Hovering behind them was a funny-looking brown-y pokémon, probably psychic, because it was sleeping and hovering at the same time.

What was I _doing_ here?

---

**Author's Note  
**Hey guys! This is a revamp of my last OT fic. Basically I was talking to people about changing some of the fic around, not the characters, but the plot. These people decided they wanted to help, and I thank them forever. The plot changes have led to the main protagonist changing names, regions, even a new starter pokémon. The base of the plot and the characters revolving around it all are the same personality- and looks-wise, are almost exactly the same.

Please Review! It's what keeps me writing. I like to know how I'm doing. Thanks.

Shout Out to Nyaa-Neko, Digital Skitty (who inspired this with their fics Pedestal and Poltergeist's), and my two co-writers/betas, Ruddy OWLS and Veritas Oraculum Amethyetical who both helped refine the plot.


	2. Elm

**Two  
Elm  
**

I learned three things in the next five minutes. One, the psychic pokémon was an abra and it could talk with its mind; two, the boy was the son of the man and woman whose names were Ezekiel and Audrey; and three, Oliver was a relatively new trainer too, who started almost a week before my birthday, after three years of study. Lord knows why he came back. Three things they learnt about me in those same five minutes were that one, I was looking to collect my starter from Professor Elm that day, two ... well, that's all they learned that about me, really. They preferred to talk about themselves, and their riches.

I was happy they weren't planning on killing me or anything. I mean, they invited a child stranger into their house. Who does that? Wait, let me rephrase. Who does that, who is _not_ some kind of crazy serial killer or paedophile? But apparently Oliver was known to bring people in off the street, particularly if they looked hungry or tired. Apparently I looked both. Well it had been a fairly early morning. Up at six, ready at half-past seven, flying out at half-past eight and barely eating since just after I woke. I didn't realise how tired and hungry I actually was until they brought it up.

That led to a very filling lunch. Apparently their resident chef had the specialty of Thai food – one of my favourites. I could have eaten bucket loads of his Pad Thai if I hadn't had such a ten-year-old's stomach. Stupid physics. And stupid biology. Stupid science.

"So what starter were you planning on getting?" Audrey asked. Despite her stern demeanour, she was a fairly warm woman. Her blonde bob never moved, even if she shook her head to look at me. So much hairspray had to be unhealthy.

"I dunno," I said, feeling a bit more comfortable around them (not so much the abra, who I could feel poking through my mind in its sleep), and a lot more relieved after I realised there was no poison in the Pad Thai. To be honest, I really hadn't thought about it. I would have liked any, as long as it was mine. But, now I had been put on the spot, I had to reply. "Chikorita? My last choice would be totodile, though..."

"Pokémon training has become infectious these days," said Ezekiel. I nodded and quietly continued eating. "Back when I was your age, we cared more about getting real jobs, like working at the PokéMart. You're old enough to work, aren't you?"

"No, I'm only ten-and-one-month." I tried to be as short as possible. The man looked like he could go on for hours, and if I mimicked the length of his speech, I'd never get my pokémon.

"Oh. Oh well. Training was only for the bravest of kids, too," he continued. "There were a lot of injustices in the world back then. Evil organizations bent on dominating the world, expanding the land and sea, even creating a new world in itself, crazy murderers, followers of the crazy murderers."

"Dad, that was after your time. _I_ was alive back then."

I had no idea what they were talking about.

---

I left an hour later, after a nice rest and a stomach filling. They pointed me in the direction of Professor Elm's laboratory and just to be sure, Oliver escorted me. We didn't talk much, and when we did, it didn't last more than three replies each. I found out that he had stronger pokémon, despite him being a rookie, because of his parents, but that was about it. At the door, he left me and headed towards the western route, while I entered, the butterfree finally appeared, as I had expected.

The first room was a reception, as it should have been. I walked up to the counter, where a blonde woman wearing a white lab coat sat at a computer. Her rectangular glasses reflected me when she looked up, but it wasn't her that spoke.

"Hello there, are you my new apprentice?"

I turned around to see a fairly awkward-looking man with glasses, brown hair (though it seemed to be starting to go gray) and a whole heap of books piled in his hands. Without another word, he thrust the books into my arms and gestured for me to follow him into the back room. I blinked and followed him. Being ten, I didn't know what an apprentice was. I decided to go with the theory that he called all his new trainers his apprentices and stayed quiet while he talked in jargon. I was told to pack away the books into the shelf next to the phials, and for about ten minutes, I was stuck there wondering why I hadn't received my pokémon yet.

After a while, he called me Harriet. That was when I decided to drop the box I was then carrying on the nearest table and speak.

"My name's not Harriet," I said clearly, though there was a bit of a shake to my voice. Professor Elm turned around and bit his lip. "I'm Andy...? Andromeda VanDenPlas? Didn't my dad call?"

Elm bit his lip harder.

"So you're not here for the apprenticeship?" he asked, fiddling with the pens in his coat pocket. I shook my head. "I didn't get any phone call..."

"Well I came here for my first pokémon," I said slowly. "Don't people usually come to you...?"

"Ah, now I remember! Yes, it was your mother that called, not your father." He stared at me with an apologetic look. I knew what that meant, but I denied it until he said, "I'm afraid I'm out of starters."

There was a pause. It was only a few seconds, but it lasted forever. My mind ticked over, thinking about what he had said. Remember how I said obtaining my starter was one of the most dramatic moments of my entire life? This is about where the ten-year-old drama started.

"Wait – _what?_" Spoiled children had a nasty temper. I flicked my ponytail from my shoulder to my back and stared agitatedly into his eyes. He looked a little taken aback. I guess he didn't usually get this type of treatment when a trainer came for a pokémon. I held a hand up to his face to shut him up as he opened his mouth to speak. "Hold on a second. You're saying I _can't_ have a chikorita, or a cyndaquil or even a totodile?"

"W-well yes," Professor Elm stammered, raising his hands up to try and keep me calm. "I-I can't just send every t-trainer who comes to me off w-with a new chikorita, cyndaquil or totodile, can I? I haven't got the resources, nor can I hatch so many eggs every day." He began to speak louder and clearer, gaining confidence in his argument. "And before you ask, no you can't have a Pokédex. I only had three, and I gave them to three other trainers. This isn't a factory, it's a laboratory."

"Professor... please!"

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to go out and catch your own pokémon, like every other trainer that can't get one from me." He rummaged through the pockets in his lab coat and pulled out a pokéball, holding it out to me as he continued. "Look, I'll even give you a pokéba--!"

"I don't want your pokéball." I furiously slapped the pokéball out of his hand. I had come all the way from Azalea Town for _this?_ I was fairly sure I was ready to punch the professor in the face. "I want a pokémon. That's what I came for, that's what I'm getting."

"I'm sorry, but I can't give you anything. All other pokémon in the lab are being studied, so it'll be a few more weeks before I can even give you one of those."

"I'm not waiting a few more weeks. I had to wait a whole month after my birthday before I could get a flight here; I'm not waiting any more. I want my pokémon _now._"

Next thing I knew, I was thrown onto some big, purple man's shoulder and carried out of the room, out of the building. The blonde receptionist watched me with relaxed eyes. I was set on my feet, facing away from the building and was expecting a foot in the back to push me away. Thankfully, it didn't come. The big, purple man closed the door behind me and I was left alone, outside the lab again. I spun myself around, inhaled, closed my eyes, and yelled as loudly as my little lungs would allow, "FINE!"

I then continued that notion with, "I'M GOING TO CALL YOUR MANAGER THEN! BETTER YET, I'LL CALL THE HEAD OF YOUR WHOLE... RESEARCH... THING! BETTER YET! I'M GOING TO WRITE A _LETTER!_"

I heard a few laughs inside (a particularly nervous chuckle I picked up on was obviously Professor Elm's) as I headed off towards the western route where the Pidgeot Man was. Without a word, I climbed into the basket and sulked, while he frantically prepared his bird for flight.

It took an hour and a half to fly home. Instead of stopping in Cherrygrove Town and Violet City, we took a direct route. I could only guess that my radiating anger was what intimidated him into getting me home as fast as possible, because I didn't say a word the entire trip, apart from the extremely short phone call to my parents telling them what time I'd be home and that they'd better not have a welcoming party.

---

**Quick Author's Note**  
Yeah... I watched _White Chicks_ the other night...

OH, AND TEN POINTS F YOU CAN SPOT THE PEDESTAL REFERENCES xD


	3. I Name You Stupid, Because You Are

**Three  
I Name You Stupid, Because You Are Stupid**

Turns out mum and dad had gathered a little welcoming party. Not for me, but for my pokémon. And since I hadn't told them I had no pokémon, they turned it into a "Welcome Home Andy" party, even though I _did_ tell them _not_ to throw one. So I clambered out of my little pidgeot basket and walked straight past them as they yelled, "welcome home!"

I headed straight home. Mum and dad followed me as I walked, watching me carefully, like protective parents do, and the rest of the party followed as well. They spoke to each other, loudly enough for me to hear them expressing their outrage at my behaviour. I didn't care. I was too angry to care. I just wanted to go home and sulk, like the ten-year-old I was. It was Professor Elm's fault. All I wanted was a pokémon. I would've taken anything. A magikarp, if I had to! Okay, maybe not a magikarp, because I hate magikarp and they're useless. But anything else (apart from other useless pokémon, like rattata) would have been fine.

But, no. Professor Elm was mean and stupid and didn't even care what I wanted.

Actually, no. It was that Oliver boy's fault. He was lame and made me go into his humungous house and eat there for, like, an hour and then let me leave. If they had just pointed me in the right direction before then, I would have been fine.

But, no. They had to force me inside and shove their stupid and disgusting food down my throat.

Actually, no. It was the Pidgeot Man's fault. He was the one who decided to take the long route to New Bark Town, costing us a whole extra hour and a half that I could have spent getting my first pokémon, before whoever took the last pokémon there for me. If he hadn't taken so long, I would have been fine.

But, no. He had to take his time, rest his stupid birds at every town on the way.

Actually, no. It was the slowpoke's fault. They had to pull in all those tourists and stop flights out of Azalea Town. If they hadn't decided to have their whole huge ceremony thing in my birthday month, I would have gotten a pokémon easy, and I would have been fine.

But, no. They had to choose that time of year, of all the many times of the year to choose their stupid king.

Oh, and just so you know, they were my thoughts back _then_. Reflecting on those times, I can now only really blame myself. If I had just taken that pokéball off the professor, I probably would have caught a pokémon and been fine.

The first place I went to when I got home was the bathroom, where I spent the next half-hour showering. It calmed me down for one thing. For another, it silenced my sobbing. For a third, I really didn't want to go back out and see my parents. "Injustices in the world" is what Ezekiel said. I decided Professor Elm was an injustice, and my parents yelling at me was also an injustice, as well as the slowpoke and their slowking.

Soon enough, though, I had to turn off the waterworks – both types – and face my parents.

It was as bad as I had expected. For the next hour or so they ranted at me, the rest of the party watching. I was seated in a chair at the dining table as they screamed. For the most part, I blocked it out, but I couldn't help hearing one or two things that made me snap back. That earned me a slap in the face, literally, and I fell quiet again. Eventually, they quietened down and the rest of the family left.

"The professor said on the phone," said mum, taking a seat opposite me and rubbing her eyes with her index fingers. Her voice was croaky from the screaming. "He said that he would give you a pokéball and you could go out and catch your own pokémon. Did he?"

"He... tried," I said quietly, avoiding eye-contact. My dad sat next to me.

"And you didn't take it, did you?" he said, leaning back and folding his arms. I shook my head. "Why not?"

"I-I w-was too a-angry, I didn't care. I just wanted a pokémon." I was sobbing again. _Man_, I was _such_ a baby.

There was silence for a while after that. My parents exchanged stares, expressions changing as they threw mental silent arguments at each other. I buried my face in my hands, and I didn't want to gig my way back out. I was perfectly content to rot there like the corpse I felt like.

"You really want a pokémon then?"

I looked up at mum, who stared seriously at me. I nodded and mumbled a "yes" as I sat back up. Both my parents simultaneously took one deep breath, mum closing her eyes as she spoke again, really, really fast. I'm pretty sure there was a large part of her opposed to her suggestion.

"Your father will somehow get you one tonight, while you're in bed. Tomorrow morning you'll leave for Violet City. Don't wake up late; it will only put you off track."

I couldn't stop the grin from appearing, and for the entire night, even as I slept, it remained there as I fantasized what pokémon I would find at the end of my bed in the morning.

---

I woke up at six again, with a weight on my chest. It was only a small weight, not heavy enough to be an actual pokémon, but light enough to be the pokéball that kept it. And that was precisely what the weight was. I stared down at it for about a minute before my neck got sore and I had to sit up properly, letting it roll down onto my lap. It didn't stay there long, as I immediately picked it back up to inspect. It wasn't like I was too scared to open it; I was just overwhelmed by anticipation.

Still, I stared at it and it stared back, taunting me with its little white button. I ran my finger lightly around the split where the ball opened and tentatively stopped it at the button, biting my lip. There were too many possibilities as to what could have been inside. I crossed my legs under the blanket.

It could have been a bloodthirsty monster, ready to jump out and eat me. Though that was probably not the case, as a protective father would never attempt to catch or buy or obtain one in any way. It could have been something utterly creepy, like a zubat. Those things freaked me out to the core, I swear. They sucked _blood_, for God's sake. It could have been something ugly, like a spearow, with the ugly, pointy beaks and the ugly, ruffled feathers, and the freaky, glaring eyes.

Knowing my father, it could have been something useless, like a magikarp, or a rattata. How would I become a good trainer with one of _them?_ Knowing my father it could have been something that looked harmless but was actually really destructive, like a pineco. Then they'd have something to worry about. My death by explosion. Knowing my father, it could have been something I really hated, like a spinarak, or some other kind of bug. They just make my skin crawl at the very sight of them, with their multiple legs and ominous pincers.

Or it could have been something completely cute and amazing and so totally awesome that I'd love my father forever.

Holding my breath, I pressed the button on the pokéball and in the usual white light that all pokéballs give off, I was slammed in the face by something heavy, something not totally materialised by the light, but still there. I fell back onto my bed with my new pokémon lying on my face. I just about screamed before I decided to push my new pokémon off my face to get a good look at it.

That was when I screamed.

Stupid-looking, wide eyes; stupid-looking, open mouth; stupid-looking, pink body pressed against the blanket with stubby, little legs spread out; even a long, stupid tail with a white tip, dangling off the edge of my bed like it was fishing. My father had caught me a slowpoke. A stupid, boring, lazy, stupid, slowpoke. A slowpoke that stared at me stupidly. A slowpoke that rolled over stupidly, expecting me to scratch its stomach. A stupid slowpoke.

I fell out of my bed and scrambled on my knees over to my door. I stood up, grasped the doorknob, but was pushed back as my father entered the room with a baseball bat raised.

"Yes, yes, please hit it!" I screeched, hiding behind the door. I hadn't registered completely that my father had caught me a slowpoke – the reason I didn't have a pokémon already. I wanted it out of my room. Dad lowered the baseball bat, sighed, and walked over to the bed. He took the pokéball into one of his hands while he scratched the stupid slowpoke's stomach. He then returned the pokémon without a word.

---

"No thanks, I want a different one. Take it back."

We sat at the dining table again, all in our exact same places. My parents' facial expressions weren't any different to how they were the night before. My expression was of sheer distaste. The stupid slowpoke's pokéball was placed in the middle of the table.

"No." Mum was being really firm. I didn't like it. "Your father put a lot of effort into catching that. We don't have enough money to buy something stronger, nor do we think any of the other wild pokémon around are safe enough."

"Besides, it's tradition for Azalea trainers to start with slowpoke," dad said, straightening his back, still staring at the pokéball. I couldn't argue, at the risk of my career as a trainer.

"Fine," I said, and quickly swiped up the pokéball. "Whatever. As soon as I find a willing trainer, I'm trading them whatever they have for this."

"You're not even naming it?" Hah! Mum thought that if I named it, I'd get attached. Maybe so, but even if I did, I would still trade it.

"I will name him Stupid, because that's what he is. Stupid."


	4. Remember How

**Four  
Remember How I Said My Parents Were Overprotective?**

"Simon, you're going with her," mum chirped from the kitchen.

Hah, they thought I wouldn't hear them. I had been in my room, packing my stuff for the epic journey to the Pokémon Centre, where I would get my real starter pokémon. Stupid was on my bed, which I had refused to make out of anger, dangling his tail over the edge again. I glared at him every time my eyes crossed his path, and he just looked stupidly back. And yes, I really did name him Stupid, but my parents decided to shorten it to Stu because they thought it was offensive. I thought it fitted him quite well.

"No, I refuse!" I called out from my room as I folded a spare shirt and shoved it into the black backpack. I then decided to postpone packing for a few minutes so I could argue. I left Stu in my room and headed into the kitchen. "Isn't a trainer's journey meant to be taken on their own?"

Now I could tell you the entire argument, but there would be no point. Besides, I reckon you're starting to get over my ten-year-old hissy fits. Their argument was that Professor Elm's pokémon were bred for battle, they were bred by the best to go off with trainers and help them climb to the top. The local slowpoke were more of a community thing. Though they could fight, they weren't bred for it, and so weren't as fit for the job as a trainer's starter. My argument was that if my dad followed me around, I'd become the laughing stock of the entire training community and I'd probably never be able to trade away Stupid.

And so, an hour later, my father and I stood outside my house, waving goodbye to my mother with opposite expressions. Stupid was in his pokéball, in my pocket, because one; he was too slow to have walk beside me, and two; I really couldn't stand seeing him at the time. It was okay though, because whenever I reached the Pokémon Centre, I would be trading him away. Dad kept being stupid and pessimistic. He told me that I couldn't trade it at that point of my journey. Well, unless I had one other pokémon on my team.

"And what do you know?" I snapped back at him, still in a foul mood. A spectacular way to begin my training journey. "You were never even a trainer! You were probably slaving away behind a checkout at a PokéMart at my age!"

"No, I wasn't a trainer, I was a coordinator," he said frankly, rolling his eyes. "And I was not at a checkout, because I wasn't old enough to work. You're not old enough to work."

"... I'm trading Stupid," I said stubbornly as the red roof came into view, "and there's no point in you trying to stop me, because I won't change my mind."

---

"Hi, my name's Andy, would you like to trade me one of your pokémon for this slowpoke?"

I pointed down to the coffee table in the reception-slash-waiting-room of the Azalea Town Pokémon Centre. Next to the little glass vase of flowers was Stupid, staring blankly off into space. His tail, while usually dangling off the table, was now actually dipped in the water of the vase. Stupid had just gotten stupider. Like he was gonna catch any fish like that. Seriously.

Unfortunately, other trainers saw how stupid Stupid was, too, thus I still hadn't gotten rid of him yet for something far more awesome. Some trainers, as I had predicted, just laughed at me (presumably because my father was there with me) and walked away. Most other trainers were nice and agreed with me by saying he looked really stupid, but some were so in denial, saying he looked nice. Well, if he looked nice, why not trade with me? These people thought they were fooling me with their lies. Except this one guy. He actually wanted to trade me. He was really keen to get rid of his pokémon, too. I was ready to accept it until I found out it was a rattata, by which time we were upstairs, talking to the smiley trading lady.

"Actually, you can keep your rattata, kid," I said. Dad stood silently behind me, rolling his eyes as often as I opened my mouth. The kid stared back at me disappointedly. He looked at least a year older than me, so I wasn't in the right place to be calling him kid, but I did anyway. Because I was egocentric like that. "I want a pokémon that I can _use_."

"But I've trained him well; he'll be a raticate soo-"

"It'll still be a _rat_, and still be useless."

"Andy, you can't be like that to people!" I could tell dad was getting a little upset with me now. Most probably because he was expressing it in his voice. He kind-of grunted when he said it. "Besides, you've never even battled with –"

"Dad. I don't want a slowpoke." I was putting my foot down; laying the law. Not a child's right, I know. It only got dad even more upset, but I shut him up with the rest of what I had to say. The kid with the rattata just walked off. "You know why? Because it was their fault I couldn't get a pokémon off Professor Elm in the first place. If it hadn't have been for their little parade, I could have gone to the lab almost a whole month earlier and claimed a chikorita... or something."

"Uh, like," said the trading lady. I shot her a death glare, but she continued anyway. "Can I just ask if you have any pokémon... like, other than that slowpoke?"

I shook my head and turned back to _my_ argument. She decided to keep talking. I didn't like that, but I listened anyway.

"Sorry, but you wouldn't have, like, been able to trade anyway," she said, looking down at her nails. "The trading centre is, like, only available for trainers with two or more pokémon. It's, like, the law. I know, it sucks, right? Anyway, I wouldn't try to trade unless I had, like, another pokémon. Unless you wanted to do it, like, illegally. But then I would have to report you, and if I didn't I'd lose my job, and then how would I pay for things like nail files?"

She then took said nail file from the desk before her, straightened up a pencil and sat back to scrape at her nails with it. I would have argued back if I'd thought she'd care. Plus, there was no way I wanted to get fined or arrested or whatever for illegal trading.

Since me and dad had spent pretty much the entire day looking for a trainer who would trade us for Stupid, we decided to stay in the Pokémon Centre for the night. Dad told me it would be better to get used to the trainer's life sooner rather than later. That meant sleeping in the stony Pokémon Centre beds instead of my own, comfy bed I had at home. I didn't really complain. If I had gone home, dad would have surely told mum about the whole rattata incident and she would have raged at me. It was usually her that started the raging. Dad just followed along with it. He was the passive one in the family, and the one that spoiled me most.

I got my trainer's license that evening, too, when we were booking the room. Trainers and coordinators stayed free at Pokémon Centres, so now was a better time than ever to officially become one. The worst part about it was that the card showed me, my zero badges and my one pokémon. I hated the facts that my picture turned out terrible, I had no badges yet and that looking at the card was a reminder that the slowpoke was mine. So, I shoved it down into the bottom of my backpack.

We figured two things out. Firstly, I was better off starting on the route with more daylight to spare, and two, that I was going to catch my next pokémon on the way up to Violet City, where I should have been able to trade Stupid away. Dad promised me that if I tried training Stupid up while searching for my next pokémon, he'd let me trade him away. I figured it would be good to train him up, at least a little. It would make him more appealing to the other trainers.

Dad called mum from the waiting room while I was lying in bed with an mp3 blasting the newest Lady GooGoo song in my head. Stupid plodded around the room for a while, sticking his tail into vases and staring absently for what seemed like hours until I decided his stupidness was depressing me and returned him. Dad came back from the phone after that little while, and told me to go downstairs and talk to mum. He looked a little upset, though I wasn't sure if it was at me or not.

When I got down to the waiting room, I realised the frustration was directed at me. After copping an earful from mum about the whole rattata thing, she then raged and rambled about how my dad should have stopped me. In the end I walked away and told dad to say bye for me. After all, it was him she was ranting about at the time, so it shouldn't have mattered to me.

I slept... not so well that night. It's not like I had any bad dreams or anything, I just slept really badly. It was probably the bed. The stone-hard Pokémon Centre beds. If all Pokémon Centres had beds I like, I think I'd have quit just then. Nobody could get used to sleeping like this.

So I slept on the floor.

Using Stupid as a pillow.

Until he walked away to dip his tail in the bathtub's nonexistent water for some nonexistent fish.

Stupid was also useless.


	5. I Hate This Already

**Five  
I Hate This Already**

I woke up the next morning (with a sore back, a sore arm, and a sore head) to the sound of smashing glass. I sat up, looked over at the door to the bathroom and saw the behind of Stupid walking through the door. The little wooden table next to the door had been knocked over and the glass vase had shattered, leaving water and flowers scattered over the floorboards. I didn't bother thinking about cleaning it up until dad woke up. Instead, I grabbed Stupid's pokéball, headed into the bathroom and returned him.

I didn't leave the bathroom right away. Instead, I showered and changed into my usual clothes: a plain black shirt, fitted close to my body for comfort and denim shorts that stopped just above the knees. I tied my hair back into a thin ponytail, as I usually had it, and headed back out, where dad was cleaning up the glass. He didn't speak, and nor did I, until our morning rituals were over and we were ready to go shopping. Dad even made a list.

"One: pokéballs," he said, grabbing a pack of five and dropping them into the blue, plastic basket. He did the same with every other item on the list. "Two: potions. Three: item capsules. Four: two tents. Five: food for both us and Stu. Six: a copy of the NanoDex. You're gonna need this when you find some pokémon you don't know."

He dropped the pocket-sized book into the basket, paid for all the stuff and we left. Before we headed onto the route, we picked up our bags, put all the large items, such as the tents and our clothes into the capsules and checked out. Before we left though, dad insisted on giving Stupid a full medical analysis. Instead of using our time to get through the next route, we were sitting for an hour in the waiting room. I slept for most of the hour, as the couches were a lot more comfortable to sleep on than the beds, and only woke up when the nurse came back out.

I would have preferred if she'd put Stupid back in his pokéball. Instead, he was lying on a tray, belly up, enjoying it being scratched by the nurse, who told me he was fit for training. I just smiled back, returned Stupid and followed dad out the front doors.

---

It took us an entire twenty-four hours before we even got to Union Cave. Along the way, there were only few pokémon we saw, none of which were looking to battle. They were also all pokémon I didn't want, like spearow and hoppip. Dad and I slept in the tents that we bought. It was uncomfortable, but that's what training was about. I was prepared for that, which you could say was ironic in a small number of ways.

Union Cave was lit with torches for the first few tunnels. After that, everything was completely black. I had to battle in the dark whenever an opponent came along; even with the torch that dad stole off the walls beforehand. I often lost, which meant having to ask the opponent to sit with me until Stupid had revived himself. The only pokémon that stupid could take down were the lower-levelled geodude that occasionally came along. We tried to stay away from anything bigger... or with fangs. We beat a sandshrew once, but that was just good luck, because it was knocked out by an onix that was rampaging past.

I wasn't sure how long we were stuck in the darkness, but we had slept at least seven times. Between sleeps, we searched the tunnels for a way out. Occasionally a hiker would pass us with a pokémon that knew how to light up the tunnels. Sometimes they stayed with us, sometimes they didn't. I complained a lot. I complained about the bloodsucking zubat (I had been bitten twice since entering the cave – _twice!_), the darkness, tripping over rocks, and the three holes that I had fallen into.

After that seventh sleep, however, our luck changed. In a tunnel's distance, we noticed tiny specks of light. Dad decided we should follow that path, and when we got closer, the lights turned out to be torches. Seeing as though we'd fallen through that many holes and not climbed once, dad decided that they led to the way out. Just in case, he took another torch (the first died out a few hours after we entered the cave) and we began to follow them.

We had barely taken five steps when a high-pitched screech stabbed us in the eardrums. Dad and I spun around just in time to see a large group of zubat form a line in front of us. Then swirl around to form a circle. From nowhere, a particularly large one landed on dad's back, crawled up to his neck and fed itself. Another did the same to his arm. Dad shrieked in pain. I swung a fist at the zubat at his neck, but it moved out of the way. Dad shook the one on his arm off, and I grabbed the other on his neck by its thin little leg things. As I swung it away, three more latched onto me and climbed around to any but of skin they could see.

Another four separated from the swirling, screeching group and landed on dad. In an attempt to shake them off, I flailed and spun until my foot hit a rock and physics pushed my body back. I fell for longer than necessary. In the space of a second, the three zubat detached from me, one by one, and flew back up to join their group. I continued to fall until I hit a slanted wall of rock and slid back onto levelled ground. Everything was dark, and blurred. My head pounded, my eyes closed, and I passed out.

I don't know how I got from my usual dream of being a totally awesome trainer with a totally awesome pokémon to this, but I was suddenly surrounded by shimmering water, damp rocks and an unknown source that seemed to fill the caverns with a mysterious, dim light. I could feel something watching me from the shadows. It was a good feeling, though. A safe feeling. I felt protected, like whatever was in the shadows could stop anything with ill intentions from coming close. We were there for about ten minutes, me on a rock, my shadowed protector hidden, just staring at each other.

"... _ow_."

I woke up to a knock on the back of my head. I was suspended on someone's shoulder, and my head had hit a stalactite or something. Immediately, I was swung down, placed with my back on a rock, and my father staring into my eyes. Stupid plodded up behind him, staring at me with those blank, stupid eyes like he did. I hated that.

"Are you okay?" Dad asked, holding my chin and turning my head from side to side. His other hand was caressing the bite marks on his neck. He looked shockingly pale. My eyes came more into focus and I noticed that we weren't in any caves anymore. Instead of walls made naturally from rocks, we were in an eerie stone hallway. I nodded, though my ears were ringing and my head was about ready to explode with pain. "Hm..."

"_Your child is hurt."_

I jumped at the voice, which resulted in a sharp increase of aching in all regions of my body, and looked to my father's side to see a giant, staring eye with a black body. The voice was feminine, though it could easily have been seen as masculine, too. For a second it glowed red, and the pain cleared a small bit. Dad didn't look freaked out at all by the strange eye pokémon. I guessed it was because he had already met it or something.

"_I am Hoja. I am an unown. Now, I ask you both, what business do you have in these halls?"_


	6. Judith

**Six  
Judith  
**

Dad explained to this "Hoja" that we were there by accident and that we were on our way to Violet City. Hoja didn't know what Violet City was, but because we were lost, she helped us out of the halls into the night. Apparantly, humans weren't allowed to roam those parts, especially at night. I grinned at the small buildings, silhouetted by the glow of the stars and moon. I greedily inhaled as much fresh air as possible, thankful for being rid of the stench of wet rock and wooper dung. There was still a faint smell of blood, though it was only because Dad's arm and neck were still bleeding.

I spun around to thank Hoja, but she had disappeared, so I just returned Stupid and walked over to dad. He was looking even paler in the moonlight, and upon seeing this I immediately went into caring daughter mode and sat him down to rest in front of a broken pillar. After setting my backpack down, I sat beside him and watched as he clossed his eyes. In moments, both he and I were asleep. I slipped into my usual dream, and battled with my epic pokémon until dawn, when a voice snapped me awake.

"Hey! there are some people here!"

The sound of thumping feet grew louder and the blurred humanoid shape moved closer as my body got used senses once more. I swear, I was really beginning to hate lab coats. This man was bald, had a walrus moustache and was intimidatingly muscular. He was holding a clipboard with the same strange etchings I had seen on the walls in the ominous halls the night before.

"Hey, um, guys..." He sounded a lot nicer than he looked. Dad rubbed his eyes and smiled groggily up at the man. The man swapped his clipboard to his left hand and offered to help me up with the other. I took his arm, but Dad stumbled up himself. The man looked concerned at our rugged appearance, but said nothing on the topic. "This is a restricted area. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave."

"Yeah, but where are we?" I asked. The sun was stinging my eyes as it slowly rose over the trees and buildings in the near distance. I held up an arm to prevent impending blindness. The man looked a little taken aback by my question.

"You're at the Ruins of Alph," he said, dropping his brow. "You're free to tour the ruins further north, but this area is strictly for research purposes." He paused for a moment, staring at our lost expressions. "You really don't know where you are, do you?"

We both shook our heads. The man smiled and beckoned over a pretty blonde girl who was also wearing a lab coat. She placed the glass incubator holding the pokémon egg down and half-ran over. She looked about five or six years older than me, and her smile automatically made me smile back. I liked her already.

"Yes?" she asked the man, her head jolting his way, but her green eyes continuing to study me and dad. Did we look that interesting? I mean, sure we'd just come out of some dark cave after being attacked by a swarm of zubat and then led through a maze with a strange pokémon we'd never seen before to guide us.

"Could you please escort these two into Violet City for me, Judith?" the man said with a smile. Judith nodded and gestured for us to follow her. We began heading east, stopping only for Judith to hear the man ask her to bring back some item capsules and some new pens. She saluted back to him and continued walking.

---

It took us about an hour or so before we made it to a gate. The guard tipped his hat at Judith as we passed through into a route we were supposed to end up on before we had gotten lost in Union Cave. In a way, I felt quite accomplished. I had finally made it (almost) to Violet City. Apparantly it was just a half a day's walk away. Trainers just walked past me on the way up north, probably thinking I wasn't a trainer because I had my dad and some science girl with me, and so Stupid didn't get any training done.

Judith was an apprentice to the researcher man, whose name was Ivan. So in learning that, I finally learned what an apprentice actually was. She took the apprenticeship for the money, and in her spare time studied to become a top breeder, like some guy she kept mentioning. His name was like hers, only more masculine. She seemed to enjoy world myths and legends as well. As we came closer to the city, she told us the the story of the Tin and Brass towers. She also told us about the current champion of the Pokémon League, who had apparantly seen all these legendary pokémon in person.

"So what are you studying back at the ruins?" asked Dad curtly, scratching mindlessly at his bites. I was a little surprised at his sudden curiosity, and in noticing this, he added, "I've always wanted to visit the ruins... though in a much more humble way."

Judith smiled. "We're studying the unowns. They're a super ancient race of pokémon that have apparently been extinct for years now."

"They're not extinct," I said automatically. Wait, maybe I wasn't meant to say that. Maybe we weren't allowed in those parts of the Ruins because that was where the unowns resided in peace. "I mean, for all we know..."

"I agree with you there, Andy," she said through a chuckle. "I mean, we still haven't even discovered the entire extent of the halls. For all we know they could extend over the whole of Johto, and maybe even Kanto, too!"

At this point we had crossed the invisible line between the route and the actual city. Dad's mobile phone began to ring in my backpack (which he was carrying). Judith stopped talking as he rummaged through the bag, flipped the phone open and brought it to his ear. I didn't have to hear the words "hey, honey" escape his lips before I knew who it was. There was a sudden screaming as soon as the speaker was enabled that could only have been my mother.

"Yes, yes, we're fi-- no, we just got a little lost... yeah, I know, but she's been getting bette-- oh, you mean her attitude. Well, it's slowly getting better... no, she hasn't stopped calling Stu Stupid yet... we're almost in Violet City... I dunno, maybe there was no service on the route... yeah, I'll put her on."

The words I'd dreaded since the screaming started. Dad held the phone out to me, not saying a word, and I took it. I hesitated before I plucked up the courage to hold the phone to my ear.

"Hey, mu--"

"ANDROMEDA JANE VANDENPLAS! Oh, I was so worried! How dare you make me feel that way! I was about ready to send out a search party!"

"Mum, chill!" I said loudly. Though I had expected it, her words made me a little aggrivated. "We're fine now, it's okay! Only a few bruises and a little bit of blood, but we're fine!"

"Blood?! Your father said nothing about blood! How did you end up with blood on you? Is Stu not protecting you like he should be?"

As much as I was tempted to say no, I knew it would just give her an excuse to bring me home. Instead, I lied and said, "No, he's been doing a great job! Really! The bruises were just from falling over a few times!" Not to mention the zubat attacks, falling down holes, bumping into stalagmites and stalactites that were invisible in the darkness and one sandshrew that decided it would ambush us from behind a boulder before I had the chance to call Stupid out. "It's okay."

Mum paused for a bit, and I thought we had escaped her tyrade. Out of nowhere, she calmly said, "put your father back on, please," and with _thank God_ repeating in my head, I held the phone up to dad, who gulped and took it back. I could tell Judith was trying not to laugh, though she hid it pretty well. Dad began talking, but I kinda zoned him out after the words, "I can't protect her from _everything_."

We were now starting to find our way into the commercial part of town. The houses began to thin out and businesses became more common. Judith stopped us at the Pokémon Centre, which was across the road from the PokéMart and we said our goodbyes. It was amazing how attached I had gotten to her in the six hours we had been together. I hugged her with a grin.

"Thanks, guys," Judith said returning my grin and letting me go. "For keeping me company on my trip up, because I would inevitably have been sent here on my own if you hadn't shown up. Oh, and thanks for listening to my stories, too. I promise I'll pay you back. When my first pokémon egg hatches, it's yours."

After a quick exchanging of phone numbers, we parted ways. Dad and I headed into the Pokémon Centre and Judith crossed the road. There was a chansey manning the reception, and quite a few trainers loitering in the lounge. We ignored them all and booked ourselves a room for a few nights. The chansey grinned and typed into a computer, then handed us a key. It was interesting to watch a pokémon use a computer. The nurses must have trained it up well.

I handed Stupid's pokéball to the chansey for a checkup and grabbed the free meal they were offering to all trainers staying. It was so good to eat real food again. I was getting sick of snacks back in Union Cave. I wolfed down about four servings of the meal, not realising how hungry I really was.

"Tomorrow," Dad said out of nowhere, making me jolt my head up to listen, "or maybe later today if we have time, we'll go check out Sprout Tower. I've always wanted to go there, too."

I didn't complain. I wasn't confident enough in battling a real Gym Leader with _Stupid_. I needed to trade him away for something better. Something awesome. But first, I needed to catch a second awesome pokémon. One that would allow me to trade my stupid slowpoke away. One that may have been residing in Sprout Tower...


	7. OneHundredFoot Tall Bellsprout's Fault

**Seven  
One-Hundred-Foot Tall Bellsprout's Fault**

Now if I told you about our trip to Sprout Tower in any more detail than necessary, you'd end up ripping your eyes out with boredom. So I'll keep it short and... well, not so sweet, especially for me. Basically, we left the Pokémon Centre later that night, just as the sun was setting, and by the time we'd made it there, we were depending on street lights to guide us. After a while, the street lights seemed to thin out into one every hundred metres or so before we came to the hundred-foot tall tower. We took the night tour that the Sages held every Friday night (turns out it had been a week and a day since we entered Union Cave) and so we walked around in a group of five for the next two hours. Some of the sages proposed a battle, but after the first one (where I was whooped by a puny bellsprout), I rejected them all.

So there I was, bored out of my mind, listening to some old man, "Elder Kōsei", who looked like he was ready to keel over right then talk about how the tower was apparantly made from a one-hundred-foot tall Bellsprout. Dad was really interested in it all, while I was looking around desperately for a totally awesome pokémon to catch. All I saw were stupid rattata, even in the upper levels, where apparantly some cooler pokémon were supposed to be. So you could imagine my mood as we left the tower with no new member of my team. And it didn't change the entire walk home, and it only worsened when I fell asleep.

My dream wasn't my normal dream of an epic pokémon battling epically in an epic pokémon battle. My dream wasn't of me and my shadow-hidden protector. It was of Sprout Tower, the one place I really didn't want to be in again. I just sat there for a whole heap of ages, doing nothing, waiting for something to happen, and nothing did. It wasn't until the next morning, when I was ready to wake up, that a giant, black, cackling face appeared right in front of my own face.

I woke up, screamed, flailed, and turned to the bed next to me, where I had just woken up dad. He was practically leaping out of his bed to come check what was wrong with me. I waved him away and buried my face in my hands, trying to rid myself of the evil black face in my dream. Dad seemed to decide to leave me alone while I sorted myself out and walked away -- probably into the bathroom. With a lingering shudder that occasionally crept through me, I got up out of bed and quickly changed into some proper clothes.

I checked the clock next to my now-trashed bed. It was nine A.M, exactly, on a Saturday morning. What and ungodly hour to be waking up. Though, I guessed that in Union Cave I was waking up at ungodly hours every day, and that was with rocks and things jabbing into various parts of my body. Then again, those Pokémon Centre beds...

"You ready to go?"

Dad's voice came from behind me. He had indeed been in the bathroom, and was now slipping his head through the collar of his shirt. I tilted my head in question. We hadn't planned on going anywhere special... or at least not in my consciousness. Dad chuckled at me, walked over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. He looked cheerful enough, though a minute ago he was worrying his head into implosion.

"I've decided we're going to try the eastern route today," he said with a slight monotone. I raised a brow. "You know... to get you an 'epic pokémon'."

Dad was talking my language. It'd taken him ten years and almost two months to learn, but he was doing it. I could have said I was proud. I didn't though, because there was still the fact that he was with me on my journey for God knows how long.

---

The route east of Violet City was pretty much grass, a distant cliff, and a bunch of trees. The pokémon around these parts were really weak, and so I didn't care all that much for any of them -- particularly the bellsprout. So in the end, I never caught anything on the route. Instead, I got a bit of training in for Stupid and a bit of a workout from walking for three hours straight. After those three hours, the distant cliff face was not so distant and we were dumb and entered a pitch-black cave.

After our last encounter with a pitch-black cave, you would expect us to have steered away from anything that looked remotely cave-y. But, like I said, we were dumb and entered the cave anyway. I think I remember a conversation about awesome pokémon being in the cave. All we saw -- or more precisely, heard -- were zubat, geodude and the occasional dunsparce. For a moment I contemplated capturing one of the dunsparce, though I had a feeling they were useless. They sounded rare enough.

At one point, I was even prepared enough to catch a dunsparce that I was holding a pokéball in my hand as we wandered aimlessly along the side of the tunnel. Dad had a hand placed on my shoulder as we walked behind me and my free hand was gliding along the rocky wall of the cave. We had no torch to give us light, so we had no choice but to continue aimlessly wandering until either we found a light source or we were out of the cave. After about an hour or so, though, we were just about to reach the entrance we had came in and there we found the dunsparce.

"Hey, lil' fella..." I said, as it stared up at me with its shut eyes. Its drill tail spun, threatening to form a passage for it to escape in. "Stupid, use water guuuAAAH!"

Just as Stupid began sucking in air, the dunsparce drilled away and everything in front of me went black again. There was a deep, evil laugh and the blackness in front of me opened two massive eyes and one fanged grin. I could see the purple gas wafting from its entire body as it cackled. In the split second it had appeared, dad had let go of me in shock. I stepped back in my own fear, my heel hitting a paricularly large rock and I tripped backwards -- a familiar experience, though this time I hit the ground -- and the pokéball slipped out of my hands.

I winced as the pain of my hitting the ground shot through my body. Through my eyelids, a flash of red light told me the pokéball had caught something. I opened my eyes, the brightness of the light outside hurting my eyes. There was no evil face in front of me, and no dunsparce, and a shaking pokéball. Dad walked over to watch as the dim red light that came from the release button faded and the soft _ding_ sounded. I had just caught either a giant evil face or a dunparce that may have (though the chances were slim) dug itself back up for whatever reason.

Returning Stupid, I promptly picked up the pokéball and walked as fast as possible out of the cave and back along the route towards Violet City. Whatever I had caught, I was trading it away as well. I decided I didn't want a dunsparce anyway, and that the evil face was not worthy of the team. So, I had a levelled-up slowpoke to trade, as well as what was in the newly-occupied pokéball. What sort of rookie trainer wouldn't trade their awesome pokémon for that?

But first, I had to find out what was in the pokéball to start with.

Dad came into our room in the Pokémon Centre room about a minute after I got in. At that point, I was sitting on my bed, in the same position I was in when I received Stupid. I held the pokéball out in front of me, ran my hand over its smooth surface, traced the line that separated each half of the contraption and then finally came to the little white button itself. This time, however, I turned the pokéball away from myself, to avoid the pokémon flying into my face as it appeared, and clicked the button.

"GAAAAAAAAA!" was the noise it made. Low-pitched, ominous, and spooky.

I had caught the evil face. The moment it was released, the pokémon turned on me with glowing eyes. I tried to resist it, but the stare was too strong. The evil face loomed closer to me, transparent purple tendrils of gas rippling from its black body. My eyelids were forced closed, my body was forced backwards onto my pillow, my consciousness slowly slipped away and I was suddenly in a whole different place.

---

**A/N**  
Mkay, guys. I'm now updating Wednesdays and Sundays. Sorry this was a little late, but my beta was busy D: Anyway, I hope you liked it. Remember to review! Please, I can't stress enough how important reviews are to me! The more I get, the more inspired I am to write, and if you like this fic enough, just review, tell me what you like about it, what I should change, etcetera. That way, I can improve and you can receive more delightful chapters to read! :D


	8. The Poltergeist's Grin

**Eight  
The Poltergeist's Grin**

Woo. Sprout Tower again.

I was standing in between two giant, golden bellsprout statues, staring at the wobbling pillar in the middle of the room. This time, the evil face was also there, directly beside the pillar, grinning wickedly at me. I tried not to look at it as it stared back. Then, in an instant, the face was right in front of me, still grinning, though this time the eyes were less evil and more amused. They were shut and I could have sworn if the face had had eyebrows, they'd be held up happily. The evil face wasn't evil anymore. It was shockingly friendly. I didn't know what to feel.

_SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP, DUDETTE!_ his voice went through three different pitches, though still held a low-pitched base, like when I wasn't unconscious. Now, however, he was talking like a human, which was completely weird. Especially because it was more of an echo in my head. _M'name's Polter, like 'poltergeist', and you're Andy._

I opened my mouth, but the words got stuck in my throat. Awesome, I was standing in front of an evil face pokémon with my jaw dropped. I took a step back, and the face followed me. I then flailed my arms, trying to hit the face away, but to no avail. My limbs just glided straight through it like it was made of gas. Like _he_ was made of gas.

_Dudette, it's okay!_ he said nonchalantly. _If I had arms, I'd totally throw them up to calm you down, but I don't. I know what you're thi-- Actually that's not how I should put it, it'll only freak you out more. Er. I can guess that you're heaps blown out by my sudden appearance in your life and stuff, but hey! I heard you were looking for and epic pokémon, and..._

He swooped back and spun around in the air.

_Here I am! At your command! Polter the epic gastly, reporting for duty!_ Again, he swooped back into my face with that grin. I began searching for my voice, and found it fairly quickly.

"I-I was actually going to trade you--"

_Oh, no! Please don't! Give me a chance, dudette! I swear I'll be an awesome team member! I can put pokémon to sleep and lick them to death everything!_

"D-death?" I stammered, scared out of my mind. A freaking ghost was talking to me about death. First of all, that was the worst stereotype ever for a ghost, secondly, I still thought it was a freaky, evil, gas-emitting face.

_God damn it! I _always_ screw this up. Every time I try to get caught by a trainer, I say something or do something and they run screaming! I hate being a ghost._ He sounded sad, and for a second, I had an urge to pat him on the back of his face-head. Not that I could anyway, because he was a ghost and all. Besides, a second later I snapped out of it and looked at this 'Polter' with a look of disbelief.

"Excuse me, but you _made me fall asleep_!" I was back to my frustrated self. "You made all the others fall asleep, then stalked them in their dreams! Who wouldn't be freaked out by just that?"

Polter slowly floated back. Finally, I had some space. I felt like if I had breathed in any more of his gas, I'd end up poisoned, even in this dream world. Again, though, the ghost looked sad. Were they supposed to be this emotional? Seriously, I'd never seen a pokémon go from scary and evil to super excited and energetic to sad and quiet. The day's stupidity didn't stop with the cave though, and I ended up continuing putting him down.

"Then you've got that evil face, and when you're all in my personal space and stuff! That's _scary_. Humans don't like to be scared!" And then the bad feeling kicked in. I looked up at the gastly and huffed. "Why did you want to be caught so much anyway?"

He looked up and moved a few inches closer. I didn't like that, but I didn't say anything either. _To become stronger. To evolve. Do you know how totally epic my line of evolution can get? We end up with special powers to rival that of the abra line._

"... is that good?"

_That's absolutely, totally, completely fricken_ awesome_!_ His grin returned, though it was half-evil this time. God, the amount of expressions this pokémon had weren't ceasing to amaze me. _Do you know how powerful the abra line gets? Alakazam are the strongest of the non-legendary psychics! That's why they're always wanted by the younger trainers! I hate them so much. They're too cocky, thinking just because they're so strong they're the best pokémon in the world._

At that point my mind changed. A little bit of training, and Polter would be my epic pokémon. It also relieved me of the hassle of trading two pokémon. "Okay, you're coming with me."

Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. The moment I said that, Polter zoomed back into my face, grinning larger than ever before, with sheer happiness. _Really? Oh, hell yeah! I promise I won't let you down! I'll be the most awesomest, strongest, coolest ghost ever and everyone will bow to our might!_ Was he snuggling up to me?

"Oh my god, please don't!" I shivered and took a step back, my back hitting a wall. "I promise I'll keep you if you don't do that to me ever again!"  
_  
Sorry, dudette._

"Can I wake up now?"

_Sure thing. Thanks so much, dudette! I owe you one!_ he said. And then his entire black, gaseous body flew into mine.

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaastlyyyyy!"

"Ack, I told you not to snug me!" I flailed my arms through Polter's body and, after sliding a huge tongue up the side of my face, he flew away, cackling. I had barely even woken up and he was creeping me out. And it might just have been me, but I could have sworn his lick had paralysed me for a second.

"Stu, use water gun!" Dad's voice filled the entire room. I sat up and turned to see Stupid squirt a thin, but strong jet of water right into Polter's face. The gastly made a gurgling sound and flew out of the water's way.

"Wait! Daddy! No!" I sat up on my knees and flailed my arms again to get his attention. He looked over at me, a quizzical look on his face. "He's okay! He's... nice! I'll tell you in a second, just ..." Wait, Stupid was my pokémon. I could stop him from attacking if I wanted to. "Stupid, stop your water gun, leave Polter alone!"

"Polter?" Dad repeated, looking even more confused. Polter swooped around behind me. Like I was going to do much.

"Yeah... he's -- er -- my new pokémon." It was hard to let that out. I still wasn't completely sure I wanted the ghost on my team. He still freaked me out. "And now that I have two pokémon, I can trade Stupid for something better and we'll beat the Pokémon League after I catch more awesome pokémon and everything will be good!"

Stupid stood and wandered slowly into our bathroom, probably to fish in the toilet. Polter rushed through the wall, probably out of curiosity, and began cackling from the other room. Dad slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned.

"You caught a ghost-type pokémon," he said quietly. I nodded, very slightly pulling my head down into my neck. "And you're keeping it." I nodded. "Of all the pokémon you could have chosen, you chose a ghost! Do you know how much danger you've just put yourself in? There have been too many bad stories about ghosts. I'm not letting you keep this 'Polter'. What's with the name anyway?"

"Short for 'poltergeist'."

"How do you know this?" His arms flicked up and landed on his head, fingers running through his brown hair. Wow. I never knew he hated ghosts so much. From there I told him about the Sprout Tower dream -- or at least I guessed it was a dream. I mean, he did apparently put me to sleep with that eye-glowing thing he did, so why couldn't he enter my dream, too? I mean, it's not like he could talk to me outside my dreams. Dad nodded slowly and sat on my bed with me, Polter cackled in the other room and floated back out with Stupid plodding along below him, eyes wide and oblivious.

"I still don't think he's a good idea," Dad said persistently. I rolled my eyes and pouted. "But --" my eyes snapped back up and caught his -- "I guess we could give him a go. If things don't go to plan, well then I'm blaming you and we'll go back home."

"You can't say every time there's a chance of something going wrong." It was true. He had been using that threat a lot lately, and I was getting a little bit sick of it. "Dad, this is a _training journey_. There's always a chance of something going wrong."

After another half-hour or so of arguments about me continuing my training, I ended up in the lounge of the Pokémon Centre. As I ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich made by the smart chansey I had grown really fond of, I flipped through the NanoDex book dad had bought me back in Azalea Town before we left. I read up on some awesome pokémon, like gyarados and the abra line. The page soon turned to a familiar black face, with an arrow pointing down to a scarier-looking face with random detached hands, and then another arrow to a fat thing with the evillest face of them all.

The gastly line scared me. I almost dropped my NanoDex. However, I composed myself and read about my new pokémon. As scary as they were, Polter's evolutions did look really awesome.

_It is usually invisible. Its speciality is Hypnosis. Some researchers believe this Pokémon is a Multidimensional being. Although it can sneak in anywhere with its gaseous body, it can also be blown away by wind._

The booklet went on to list all of the attacks Polter would learn as he grew stronger. Coincidentally enough, my new ghostly companion appeared in front of me.

"... I know you can use Hypnosis," I said after I noticed he was there. He nodded... or what I assumed was a nod, if someone only had a head and no body. I finished off my sandwich and continued. "And I guess you can use Lick, too?" Again, he nodded. "Can you use Spite yet?" Another nod. "Mean Look?" This time he shook his head and I laid back. "Let's see what this thing says about Stupid."

I flicked a few pages, and I found the stupid-looking line of pink pokémon, all of which I recognised, as they all lived in Azalea Town. The slowbro and slowking didn't come up from the well, though, as they usually preferred to stay right down in the bottom chambers. The slowpoke in the picture looked exactly like Stupid, though that wasn't a difficult accomplishment. All slowpoke looked the same, regardless of gender.

"The Dopey pokémon," I said through a snort. "You can say that again..."

_No one can tell when a Slowpoke is thinking, if it ever does think. Its speciality is fishing with its tail._

"I don't think it's his specialty. More like and obsession. Well at least he knows how to use his attacks," I murmured, more to myself than Polter. He cackled, though, and swooped around to read over my shoulder. "He knows... Tackle, Growl and Water Gun... from what I know. He'll probably know Yawn, too. He's actually a bit cooler than I thought. Look! He learns a psychic move next!" I didn't notice Polter roll his eyes. I closed mine, brows furrowed in thought. "Wait... if he's a psychic pokémon, why can't he talk with his mind? Probably too stupid..."

I continued studying the book for another half-hour or so before my eyes began to sting and I noticed it was getting late. For another ten minutes, I talked with dad about my first gym battle, and then after another five minutes of arguing, he convinced me to keep Stupid, at least until I beat the Violet Gym Leader.

The next day, I stood with dad outside a massive building that was being circled by a whole heap of pidgey and spearow and whatever other kinds of bird pokémon. My expression held nothing but determination. Without a word spoken between my father and I, I led him into the Gym with Polter's pokéball in hand.


	9. Kaboom!

**Nine  
Kaboom!**

"It's okay, a lot of trainers don't beat their first Gym straight away."

Falkner was... not as easy as I thought. Everyone I had ever talked to about battling Gym Leaders had told me this Gym was by far the easiest of them all. That meant that the few people we passed in Union Cave, Judith, the nurse in the Pokémon Centre and the two strange twins in the lobby of the Pokémon Centre lied. Falkner wasn't easy at all. With just a pidgey he was able to push both Stupid and Polter into the ground. I didn't even get to see his other pokémon, which was apparently his strongest. The entire battle lasted about a minute and a half.

"It'll be fine," the blue-haired bird boy said, walking over to me from across the arena. It was pretty much a huge circle with walls and no roof. There were a few benches around the perimeter of the arena for people to watch from, but at the moment they were empty. "You just need a bit more training. I do have to say though, you're a unique one. The first trainer I've ever seen that travels with their dad."

I shot my dad and 'I-told-you-so' glare and stomped past Falkner, towards the exit. There was no doubt Falkner would tell every other trainer about my dad following me around, and then almost the entire training community would find out, and I would be the laughing stock of the world of trainers.

Dad said what I guessed was a quick apology to Falkner and followed me out. He spoke loudly, not loud enough to be shouting, but loud enough for a few people to hear. I was blocking out the ranting, though, because I already knew what he was saying, and frankly, I didn't really even care. All I wanted at that point in time was to get to the Pokémon Centre, trade Stupid away and then train Polter into the awesome pokémon he was talking about. Then I'd try Falkner again.

---

"Hey there! I'm Andy! How would you like to trade your vulpix for my slowpoke?"

The trainer chuckled and walked away, like the five or so before her. I glared into her back, hoping it'd somehow cause her pain. If only I could use pokémon moves -- her back would so be fried right now. They could have at least shown the courtesy to politely decline my offer. Instead, they laughed in my face and walked off! How rude!

I crossed the room and came to a table i had been eyeing for a while before. The trainers around it were all very tough-looking, and all ogling at a small, pink cat curled up in the middle of the table. It was the cutest thing ever, and I wanted it to be mine -- whatever it was. No doubt it was rare, otherwise the other trainers wouldn't have been in such awe of it. A fat trainer who was wiping her fat hand over its back, boasting.

"I caught her in Hoenn last month," the fat girl said, deeply speaking as if she was Jabba the Hut. They're not very uncommon there, but this one was. Usually they're a lot less orange in colour, they're actually bright pink. They can grow up to be pretty strong, too. I just need to find a Moonstone and she'll evolve."

"Um, excuse me," I said from outside their little circle. Everyone looked up at me, and a bit of stage fright struck through me like lightning. I held Stupid's ball to my chest, breathing slowly. "Would any of you like to trade one of your pokémon for my slowpoke?" I closed me eyes, awaiting the laughter, but none came. I opened one eye. They all looked with one brow raised at me each. "I've trained him up?"

The Tubbs, as I had just named the fat girl with the cat, smirked. "You want my skitty, don't you?"

"Well, anything good will do... but if you cou--"

"Where's your daddy, kid?" the Tubbs said. I didn't like when she spoke. The others laughed at me. Dad was upstairs, asleep after such an early morning. Seriously, we'd been up earlier than that before. I don't know how they knew about him travelling with me, but I was guessing it was Falkner or one of the Pokémon Centre staff. "You're a newbie, aren't you? Don't answer that, I can tell that you are." (I wasn't going to answer anyway). "I'll tell you what. You want my skitty, we'll battle for it."

It was true, I was only new to training, and although the Tubbs looked a lot stronger than me, I really wanted that 'skitty'. Without thinking any more, my mouth opened and projected the words like Stupid's Water Gun.

"It's on, Tubbsy."

The Tubbs gasped slightly and stood up. "And I was going to go easy on you, too! Let's get outside."

"Alright, let's go, Stupid!" I threw the pokéball as soon as we stepped out into the street, and just as it landed on the ground, it burst open and the beam of light appeared and began taking shape.

"Thunderbolt."

Before Stupid had even finished materialising, the skitty began crackling with electricity. From her tail, a thick line of electrical energy shot up in an arch and came down onto Stupid's back. The battle had lasted not even ten seconds and Stupid was knocked out. I quickly returned him and called out Polter, who grinned and licked my face.

"Again."

A second later, Polter was knocked out as well. I didn't say anything, just returned him and stormed back into the Pokémon Centre, blocking out her disgusting cackle. As I handed Stupid and Polter in for healing, a hand was placed on my shoulder. I turned to see the Tubbs smirking down at me, tossing a pokéball in her hand, the skitty on her own shoulder. I slapped her hand off me, and we glared at each other for a moment.

"Go away."

"I'll trade you one of my other pokémon for your slowpoke."

---

I didn't know why, but I said yes. Actually, I knew exactly why I said yes. However, I had that strange nigging feeling in the back of my mind telling me it was a bad idea. There was something about her sneer that told me she had a reason behind this, something sinister to get back at me. But for what? What had I said to her that would give her such a look?

As the two silhouettes swapped on the screen in front of us, I tried to guess what she was trading to me. But what was a circle? It could have been anything. A smoothe geodude? A curled-up sentret? A ... normal jigglypuff? Well, I didn't want any of them, I wanted something epic. As soon as the Tubbs' pokéball dropped before me, I swooped it up and bolted out of the trading room and through the Centre. I came to mine and dad's room and woke him up with a joyous screech.

"DaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAaaaddy!" I skipped around to the side ihis bed and he looked blearily up at me. I flucked my arm forward and he was then looking at my new pokémon's pokéball. "I did it! I got a new pokémon! I traded Stupid!"

"Mmm, really?" he mumbled, still asleep. Lucky he was, because on reflection, I think he would have killed me. "What is it, honey?"

"I... I don't know," I said, looking down at the pokéball. I bit my lip and looked over at an empty space. "Go... pokémon?"

The next minute was actually a second, it just felt a whole lot longer. Everything moved in slow motion, as clichéd as it was. The red light became a giant, red-and-white ball. The red-and-white ball began to glow and then shine a bright white. And then it exploded, filling the room with dust and blasting a hole in the wall behind it. Dad and I were covered in soot or something, much like the rest of the room. The electrode that caused all this, my new electrode, was fainted on the ground in front of the giant hole it created.


End file.
